The Silent University is an autonomous knowledge exchange platform by and for refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants. The Silent University aims to address and reactivate the knowledge of the participants and make the exchange process mutually beneficial by inventing alternative currencies, in place of money or free voluntary service. The Silent University’s aim is to challenge the idea of silence as a passive state, and explore its powerful potential through performance, writing, and group reflection. These explorations attempt to make apparent the systemic failure and the loss of skills and knowledge experienced through the silencing process of people seeking asylum.

A special program of the Performa Institute and The Silent University is New York City pilot, Öğüt presents Define and Use: Silent University Student ID Card. The program is a workshop for anyone who is interested to register and become the Silent University’s student, Workshop participants are introduced to the dynamic mission of the Silent University, informed of the challenges refugees experience in transferring their education and skills upon living in the West, and engaged in the creation of a Silent University Student ID Card, which allows them to loan their time and skills at some point in the future by actively participating in the Silent University. The workshop addresses pertinent questions such as: What can be achieved and accomplished with a Student ID Card? How can participating in the knowledge exchange platform challenge the formal education industries as a critique of the formal system and its bureaucratic domination? How can an ID Card become an ideological construction of one’s own life? Beyond these vital questions, students are asked to think about how they can contribute to and improve an asylum seeker, a refugee, and an immigrant’s life in and out of the existing system.

The Silent University initially started in London in 2012 in collaboration with Delfina Foundation, Tate Modern, and Migrant Resource Center. It is currently being established in the Stockholm in collaboration with Tensta Konsthall and ABF Stockholm. Beginning in November 2013, it will have new branches in Paris and Berlin in collaboration with Le 116 Centre d’art contemporain/ Centre for contemporary arts, Ville de Montreuil, and Maxim Gorki Theater.